Lunch Money is an easy-to-use personal finance app designed to help you effortlessly manage your money, track expenses, and stay on top of your financial goals. Whether you are budgeting for the week or planning for the future, Lunch Money aims to streamline your financial life.
Jennifer Yip founded Lunch Money in 2019. Since then, it’s garnered a loyal following thanks to its user-friendly interface and powerful features, making it a standout in the world of budgeting apps.
Lunch Money, gives you access to essential tools like expense tracking, budgeting, and goal-setting, all in one place. It also offers unique features like automatic bank syncing and a customizable dashboard to suit your needs. Keep reading to discover the features, the pros, and the cons of using this up-and-coming financial app!
What Is Lunch Money?
Lunch Money is a user-friendly, web-based budgeting app designed for those who want a user-friendly alternative to traditional spreadsheets. It provides a number of customizable features, including multi-currency budgeting and a cryptocurrency portfolio tracker.
The app connects with numerous financial institutions via Plaid. Alternatively, you can manually upload a .csv file containing your banking data.
After importing your transaction history, Lunch Money enables you to categorize, split, group, and tag transactions as you see fit. You can also set up rules to automate the organization of future transactions.
When Jen Yip founded Lunch Money in 2019, she wanted to create a modern budgeting tool that could track multiple currencies. As a result, Lunch Money now serves users in over 30 countries! From helping users track day-to-day expenses to analyzing their spending habit trends, Lunch Money goes beyond traditional budgeting software.
3 Key Lunch Money Features
Lunch Money is much more than just a budgeting tool; it offers a variety of features to help you manage your finances efficiently. The following three features make it a powerful app for anyone looking to take control of their personal finances.
Trackers And Calculators
Lunch Money offers a number of trackers and calculators designed to streamline your financial planning.
One standout tool is the multi-currency tracker, perfect for freelancers, international budgeters, or anyone managing income in multiple currencies. For instance, if you’re a United States citizen earning US dollars, but currently living abroad in Taiwan, Lunch Money seamlessly handles the conversion and tracking. This feature makes global budgeting more efficient and stress-free.
For cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Lunch Money comes with a crypto tracker. In fact, it is the first budgeting app to integrate a top-tier crypto portfolio tracker. This allows users to see their cryptocurrency holdings alongside their overall financial picture. The best part I would say is its flexibility; users can track their cryptocurrencies automatically or input them manually.
Another valuable tool is the net worth tracker, which is ideal for those focused on long-term financial growth. This feature enables you to monitor changes in your net worth, view historical account balances, and analyze trends over time using a clean, organized interface. For further customization and convenience, you can edit historical values in a table format and export the data to a .csv file.
Stats, Trends, and Analytics
Managing your finances becomes easier when you have clear insights into your spending patterns. Lunch Money’s Stats and Trends feature offers insightful data and user-friendly visualizations, helping you identify opportunities to build better financial habits. By identifying spending trends, you can make informed decisions, such as cutting unnecessary costs or increasing your savings, ultimately taking control of your financial future.
For an even deeper dive into your finances, Lunch Money’s Query Tool lets you analyze your expenses with advanced filtering options. This powerful analytics feature gives you a detailed breakdown of your spending, providing clarity on how your financial choices affect your overall budget.
By combining the Query Tool (analytics) with Stats and Trends, you can spot patterns, refine your spending habits, and confidently work toward achieving your financial goals.
Budgeting Categories
Creating a budget is one thing, sticking to it is where the real challenge begins. Lunch Money gives you the tools to tackle both with ease! The app’s intuitive visuals and customizable budgeting categories allow users to track every transaction from their bank account. Additionally, you can generate detailed reports to gain a clear understanding of your overall finances and spending patterns.
Lunch Money automatically categorizes your expenses, helping you prioritize spending while you set up and monitor your budget throughout the month. You can also create personalized rules to automate the budgeting process, saving time and enabling you to focus on analyzing spending habits. This ensures your financial behavior aligns with your long-term goals.
Lunch Money Pricing
Lunch Money offers a straightforward pricing structure, starting with a risk-free 30-day trial that requires no credit card information. After the trial, you can choose between two pricing options:
- Monthly subscription plan: $10 per month, billed automatically.
- Annual subscription plan: $100 per year (you can also set your own price).
The 30-day free trial gives you ample time to set up your finances and explore the app’s features to determine if it meets your budgeting needs. Once you’re ready to commit, the pricing will be competitive with other premium budgeting tools.
You can save some money by purchasing an annual subscription at a discounted rate. Lunch Money even offers you the option to set your own price (between $50 and $150 per year). By paying more you help support the development team, and will also be eligible for a free gift after your first year.
For those seeking a robust financial tracking solution, Lunch Money’s flexible plans allow you to start small and upgrade as your financial goals grow. Whether you prefer a monthly subscription or the savings of an annual plan, Lunch Money provides a cost-effective way to manage your finances efficiently.
What I Like About Lunch Money
- Easy-to-use budgeting tools and net worth calculator: The app simplifies tracking your finances, providing a clear picture of your net worth and budget at a glance.
- Sync or add manual accounts: You can link your financial accounts or manually add transactions, offering flexibility for those who prefer more control.
- Customizable transaction rules and reports: Lunch Money allows you to tailor transaction categorizations and generate detailed reports to suit your financial goals.
- Multi-currency support: This is a significant advantage for users dealing with multiple currencies, making it perfect for travelers or freelancers working internationally.
- 14-day free trial: You can explore all features before committing, ensuring the app meets your needs.
Don’t just take my word for it, check out this video of happy users!
Future Features I’d Like to See on Lunch Money
- Less aggressive budgeting approach: Unlike zero-based budgeting apps, Lunch Money doesn’t allocate every dollar, which may not work for users seeking a strict budgeting style.
- No mobile app: While the web-based platform is responsive, the lack of a dedicated mobile app might deter users who prefer on-the-go access.
- No free plan: After the 14-day trial, you’ll need to pay for continued access, which could be a barrier for budget-conscious users.
Lunch Money Review: Final Thoughts
Lunch Money is an innovative web-based budgeting tool tailored for today’s spender. It offers classic budgeting features such as trackers and calculators, budgeting categories, stats, trends, and analytics, while also supporting multiple currencies and tracking cryptocurrency transactions. Overall it is a versatile choice for managing personal finances!
What budgeting tools do you use? Would you try out Lunch Money? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section!
